When? roughly.
Place five things from history on a timeline, roughly.
Every day: Five things from history each day, the same for everyone, to place on a timeline from 3000 BC to today as close to the right date as you can. New puzzle: Midnight UTC.
When? roughly. gives you five things from the past each day, from the Great Pyramid to the first printed money, and asks you to pin each one on a timeline running from 3000 BC to today. You score by how close you get, and the reveal explains the real date.
About When? roughly.
When? is one of the daily guessing games from roughly., a small site whose games all ask for an estimate rather than an exact answer: where an animal lives, how big something is, how expensive it was. In When? the question is the date.
Each day brings five items, the same for every player. One might be a building such as the Colosseum, another an invention such as spectacles or gunpowder, another an event such as the end of the Roman Empire in the west. A short description tells you what the item is, and you drag a pin along a timeline from 3000 BC to the present. After each guess the game shows the real date and how you could have reasoned your way there.
New rounds arrive at midnight UTC. Today's rounds are always free and need no account; past days are part of the paid roughly+ tier. You can also open a room, share its code and play the same rounds live with friends or a stream audience. The site runs in English and German and credits Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikimedia for its facts.
How to play When? roughly.
- Read the description of the day's first item.
- Drag the pin along the timeline, from 3000 BC to today, to where you think it belongs.
- Confirm your pin and read the real date and the explanation.
- Repeat for all five items.
- Share your result, or open a room to play the same five with friends.
Tips
- Anchor on dates you know well and judge the item as before or after them.
- The timeline is long: on ancient items a guess within a few centuries is good.
- Read the explanation after each reveal; the same eras come up again.
Questions
When does When? roughly. reset?
New rounds arrive every day at midnight UTC, five per game.
Is it free?
Yes. Today's rounds are always free; playing past days needs roughly+.
Can I play with friends?
Yes. Open a room, share the code, and everyone plays the same rounds together.
Games like When? roughly.
Chronle
Put the day's historical events in order on a timeline
Timeline (From The Think)
Guess the year of six major events as close as you can
Yeardle
Three events from one year: name the year
Dawn of Time
A daily history puzzle that starts from a birth year
Chronophoto
Slide to the year a photograph was taken
How expensive? roughly.
The same site, guessing what everyday things cost in a given year
Where? roughly.
The same site and format, pinning five animals on a world map
Which way? roughly.
The same site, drawing rivers and mountain ranges on a blank map